So I've been looking at Windows Phone 7. As an iPhone user(I love my phone), my biggest quirk is that the programming model sucks(Objective C is only used on the apple platform, and it's a nasty language), and that in order for me to make applications, I
need to PAY Apple. And I can't deploy any applications to my phone without putting it on the market-place.

Along comes Windows Phone 7. It uses my favorite language and IDE, and it doesn't look all that bad.

Now, investing time and money into a new application model is a pretty big deal. And given that in order to run an application on the phone, you have to submit it through Microsoft, just like with Apple. That means in order for me to write programs that
I'd wanna use, I'd have to support it in case other people wants to buy it.

So how the hell does one justify spending time on WP7? The success of the Windows Platform is based on the fact that good tools are readily available, and you can execute any program on any computer that runs Windows. But given that it's my understanding
that this will not be the case on WP7, but that Microsoft has to approve your application, then how is WP7 not gonna fail against other platforms?

I don't think anyone can really answer that question in a satisfactory manner. I assume Microsoft hopes it will succeed.

I got no relations to Novell or the Mono people (just a fan of Mono), but I feel like I should mention you can actually do iPhone development in C# with MonoTouch. You can also write iPhone apps in Flash/Flex now.

I don't think anyone can really answer that question in a satisfactory manner. I assume Microsoft hopes it will succeed.

I got no relations to Novell or the Mono people (just a fan of Mono), but I feel like I should mention you can actually do iPhone development in C# with MonoTouch. You can also write iPhone apps in Flash/Flex now.

I've looked at monotouch, but I'm not about to pay 250$ for a license

PerfectPhase"This is not war, this is pest control!" - Dalek to Cyberman

One of the things that erks me the about the app stores model as a developer is it seems to have destroyed my ability to create an app and share it with a small group of people, as Chadk said, I may not want to release it into the wild as I don't want tohave to support it for a large group of people.

Maybe I've missed something?

How do I justify spending time on WP7? Best answer for me is I want to write some private apps for my phone, but I don't want to have to buy a mac to do it. Everyone will have have their own answer; for some it will make sense, others it won't. Just lookat want you want to achieve and make the best decision based on the information you have to hand. For my work, it's looks like we won't have an option but to write the same app in iOS, WP7, Android, and maybe WM6.X if we ever go that route.

before assuming anything, you should look at the actual development model.

first of all, you can get a dev device quite easily, if you have an app you want to develop. registering with the dev program costs $99 and that gives you the ability to sideload apps on your device and all the certification/code signing when you want to
sell something in the marketplace.

with the registration , you get the ability to put a limited number of free apps (don't remember how many) and unlimited paid apps. I have yet to verify this (just registered Saturday and I'm out of town now) but I remember something about doing limited
betas with friends.

By the way, this has been posted from an LG dev device running build 7003

In my opinion a great reason for investing time in wp7 development is first and foremost the fun developing with your favorite language and the best development tools on the market. Silverlight and Xna coupled with Visual Studio 2010 blows all other mobile
development platforms away and it does so single handedly. Out of great fun developing will come great applications for the windows phone 7.

Everything else is just a guess. When gartner estimates the wp7 will become the 6th most used mobile platform then this is nothing more than a guess. They have no idea how windows phone 7 will be adapted because nobody does at this point of time.

You can keep in mind however that investing time into developing apps for windows phone 7 means investing time in .net, c# and silverlight and/or xna. And this is an investment very much worthwile because it means you can target your application for windows
and for the xbox as well. And this is a very big market already.

Yup, easily. I got an email from a Twitter thread, emailed, got redirected to my local Dev evangelist, exchanged a couple of emails detailing my app design intentions and got a device fedexed overnight. Did you email the Dev rep with the details of your
app?

Yup, easily. I got an email from a Twitter thread, emailed, got redirected to my local Dev evangelist, exchanged a couple of emails detailing my app design intentions and got a device fedexed overnight. Did you email the Dev rep with the details of your app?

So you have to convince a person, who might not even respond to your email, that your application is a good idea, in order for you to get a dev-device?

See, I can't commit to actually ever releasing anything. I'm just a hobbyist with some spare-time who wants to write for a mobile platform.